Blown it

I hadn't been to the plot for a few weeks, not properly anyway.  The weather hasn't been great and it has been busy at home.  I nipped over for half an hour yesterday to check on things.

The main development was that some of the Brussels plants had obviously grown some lovely sprouts but that many of them had blown already.  I picked all the ones that were of a decent button size and took them home with 4 leeks and a cabbage.  I have blanched a handful of decent-looking tight sprouts to freeze for Christmas and cooked up a leek, potato and sprout soup with the sprouts that had exploded.  An allotment soup for all the family.  Yum!  Hopefully.

Bean there, done that

It has been a few weeks since my last post but I have spent some time over at the plot.  I've cleared out the courgette plants and the sweetcorn (leaving the butternut squash ones behind as they have some small green fruit and I can't bear to rip them out yet).  There were still some patty pans coming but they were becoming moldy.  I've harvested half of the leeks as they look rusty and not very happy.  They taste ok though.

Last Sunday/Monday, we were warned of strong hurricane-strength winds so I nipped over to see what I could fasten down.  Winds were already picking up by lunchtime but I decided to leave the mesh where it was, over the Brussels, spring cabbages and sprouting, and just bring the tools I couldn't fit in the storage box home.  When I checked on things on Tuesday, nothing had budged except a couple of homemade wood and mesh frames from a neighbouring plot.  They had made there way onto mine.

I nipped over very briefly today with husband and toddler to quickly sow the broad beans where the courgettes and sweetcorn had been.  My toddler "helped" in her own way by throwing beans randomly into the shallow trench I had made.  It will be a minor miracle if any of the beans germinate.  Not just because of the hasty sowing but also because a large proportion of the seeds are from last year and had been kept badly in an outside storage box.  They even got rained on in their packet at some point.  For this reason, I sowed 2 per station in many places to hedge my bets.

My husband is quite impressed with the state of the plot.  It does look like I've dug over most of it though it is more like three-quarters.  Hopefully, I can get the rest of it dug over Christmas.

A quick check on the garlic bed showed that the Early Purple is living up to its name by being the first to send up shoots.

Vampires beware...

...the garlic is coming for you!  I spent some time on the allotment this morning and it was a tad nippy.  Well, not that cold but I wasn't dressed for it.  I need to dig out my fleece from the loft.

I put in 8 cloves of Elephant Garlic (2 of these were 'rounds' from this year's attempt at growing them), 30 cloves of Solent Wight, 30 cloves of Early Purple and 15 cloves of Lautrec Wight.  Some of the Lautrec Wight cloves were a tad small and a couple were discarded because they were a bit soft.  The rest looked good.

So the Lautrec is a hardneck so will apparently develop a flowering stalk that should be harvested as soon as it appears and used in a stir fry.  I must remember that as it could result in the bulb doubling in size.

I measured the length of the plot with a bamboo cane which I think is a 180cm one.  Not including the end bit for storage and composting, it is 7 canes long (12.6m).  I measured 3 canes for the length of the top two quadrants and 3 for the bottom ones, leaving a 1 cane strip in the middle for fruit.  So I'll plant some fruit bushes and raspberry canes down that strip, leaving a gap down the centre for strolling, watering and inspecting.  

I cut down the sweetcorn and will dug over that small patch later in the week.  There appear to be a couple of baby squash growing but I can't see that they have time to mature before the frost sets in.

Almost being organised

After a bit of chickenpox this week with the little one, I did get 2 hours on the plot this weekend but took it slow.  I focused on brassicas.  I checked the sprouting broccoli for caterpillars (again) and found 3 of the critters.  Then I planted out the holey spring cabbage seedlings.  There were 16 in all so I set them out in a 4x4 block next to the compost bin which is situated in an awkward place in the top right quadrant (more about the quadrants I am planning in another post).  I looked over the Brussels sprouts and picked off a few snails, slugs and caterpillars.

I dug over a 1m square to finish off the patch for the garlic.  That's for tomorrow when I have a day off work.  I'll also transplant the rhubarb crown that is currently languishing in the shady bed in our front garden onto the plot.  And I'll try sowing some Meteor peas.  I wouldn't bother with early peas but these were free on a magazine so I'll give them a go.

My plan is to divide the plot into 4 quadrants with a strip halfway down (width ways) for fruit bushes and the rhubarb and a strip at the bottom for composting and storage.  I've not decided whether to have the raspberry canes with the fruit bushes or at one of the ends.  I'll rotate crops between years as is traditional.

The top left quadrant will be for legumes and cucurbits but these currently house the leeks, sweetcorn (now finished), squashes (which are flowering but too late to fruit) and courgettes.  There are all the bush beans and a Brussels sprout plant (which ironically is the healthiest looking of the lot despite not being covered).

The top right quadrant will be for brassicas.  That is where the potatoes were.

The bottom left will be for roots veg.  That is where the brassicas are currently settled.

The bottom right will be for the onion family.  Nothing is in here just yet.

Sounds terribly organised for me.  It won't last.

More Where's Wally

No digging at Friday lunchtime but I did get 2 hours at the plot yesterday.  Bliss.  

I dug over about 8 sq m at a guess.  The ground was quite dry in places but so much easier than how it was with the heavy clay on the original Plot 35.  

Then I went to check on the purple and white sprouting plants I'd planted recently.  They were holey.  Flipping caterpillars!  So, on my hands and knees, I inspected all 12 plants v carefully "disposing" of the little critters.  One plant looked very badly diminished but the heart is intact so fingers crossed it might recover.  I sprinkled a few chicken pellets around them, raked the bed and watered them before covering them back over.  

Lesson for next year - do check brassica plants before planting out.

Where's Wally?

I just had a bit of time before starting work to do some housework and finally got round to checking the spring cabbage seedings on the patio.  Something was making them holey.  Sure enough each one (on average) had 2-3 little green cabbage white caterpillars.  Very good camouflage especially on the stems so I may not have picked them all off but most of them are now on the patio for the birds.  Fingers crossed the little plants will recover nicely to be planted out in the next couple of weeks.  The caterpillars seemed to have stuck to the outer leaves although a couple of the bigger ones were clearly en route to the heart for a nibble.  

Hopefully, more digging at lunchtime today...

Minor heartbreak

It had been a week I think since popping over to the plot so when I had a couple of hours to spare (yeah, right) on Saturday I was keen to see if the tomatoes had ripened yet.  On arrival, I found the 6 plants had been ravaged by blight.  Lots of the fruit looked savagable so I ripped the plants out and separated off the good-looking fruit.  Not too bad, I thought, I'll make lots of green tomato chutney on my day off on Tuesday.  I also harvested some sweetcorn, patty pans and bush beans and dug up all the spuds.

So I look the crate of tomato fruit home (discarded the blighted plant material) and washed them.  I had a work trip away Sunday-Monday so left them at home waiting to be cooked up.  On my way home yesterday, my husband sent me a text to tell me that all my fruit had gone mouldy (bless him - he didn't want me to have a shock by walking in and seeing them like that so forewarned me).  No green tomato chutney for me today.  We did manage to eat some of the redder ones roasted for brunch on Sunday morning and they were very tasty.  Shirley might be worth trying next year but much earlier to try to avoid the horrible blight.

I consoled myself with a 2 hour session down the plot this morning.  I planted out some purple and white spouting plants and tended to the cabbages and Brussels sprouts (weeded and fed).  I also cleared a square metre of grass and nettles.

I also came back with a big handful of broccoli sprouts from the stumps left after harvesting the main head. And 3 more patty pans.  And a potato that I'd left in the ground at the weekend.

Lots more ground to clear...

Patty pans a-go-go

After a long weekend away and a very busy work week last week, I couldn't wait to make a quick trip to the plot this morning before work.  The cupboards were getting bare so I needed to fetch some grub.

The patty pan squash (green tint) have been busy in my absence.  I was worried about the lack of fruit to date but needn't have been.  There were 4 fruit looking ready to pick in that they were measuring about 4 inches in diameter.  There were another couple at about 2-3 inches across which I left thinking they need a bit longer.  An Internet search suggests that they are ripe for the picking at 2-3 inches across.  Perhaps I'll pick the others tomorrow if I get a chance.

Anyway, I come home with those 4 squash, a couple of handfuls of mange tout, 1 cucumber, 2 handfuls of broccoli sprouts and 2 cobs of sweetcorn.  We had the sweetcorn, broccoli sprouts and a squash for tea.  Very nice.  I just steamed half the squash and added the rest to our pasta sauce.  The sweetcorn was steamed for about 30-35 mins and it was delicious - getting full marks from my husband.

Last week, I did manage a short trip to the plot and saw that the tomatoes were still green-as-you-like.  I hadn't caned them up at all so they were lulling all over the place.  I removed some more of the courgette leaves and put up some canes for the tomato plants to lean on.  The hope was that more sunshine would get to the fruit for ripening.  Today, I could see that a couple of the fruit had started to blush.

The weather has turned cooler now so autumn feels like it is approaching.  That makes me happy.  We've had a great warm summer and I've had a great first season on the new plot.  Time to get digging this weekend if the rain holds off.

Biggest harvest from the new plot to date

I had a day to myself today to catch up on some chores and to treat myself to some gardening.  Last weekend, I focused on our front garden at home and carved out a new bed (7x0.8m roughly).  It was tough getting the turf off of such dry ground and even forking over the patch was hard-going.  I under-estimated the task but it gives us more scope for a sunny bed because the opposite bed is shaded by next door's hedging.  So today, I started populating it with the Mediterranean herbs from the other bed, and the fig plant which was sitting in a pot in the back garden and not fruiting.  I am hoping that the new location against a south-facing wall, albeit sheltered to the east by our house, will make it happy and get it in the mood for fruiting.

I did get some time over at the plot in the afternoon.  It was warm - about 23 Celsius.  The priority was to put some sort of barrier around the sweetcorn in an effort to put the badger off.  Two of the bits and pieces left on the plot when I took it on looked promising.  Someone had taken two sheets of plastic netting and attached thin planks along both ends of them.  Each plank was about a metre high so I cut them all in half leaving me with four pieces of netting with short planks at the ends.  I could then use them to form a boundary around 3 sides of the sweetcorn patch, keeping them upright and in place with bamboo canes.  The fourth side of the patch is covered by the courgette plants so it shouldn't be a problem that the netting doesn't extend that far.  Fingers crossed.  Some of the plants have cobs starting to grow nicely so the badger will come round soon.

The mange tout flowers look stunning (not that you'd know it from the photo below) and a closer inspection revealed a small handful of purple pods that were ready to pick.  Obviously, I tried one.  Sweet and crispy.

And I harvested a cabbage, two heads of calabrese, some onions and a few handful of chard leaves (for tonight's curry).

A whole carrier bag full of treats!

I watered everything then returned home for a lolly to cool me down.

My very first calabrese

I managed to get 40 mins or so at the plot today while the little one was napping.  I dug over a little bit more of the recently uncovered patch but less than I wanted.  I watered a couple of things but didn't have time to attend to everything.

I was very happy to be able to harvest my very first calabrese head.  It looks like it was about to start opening its flowers so I grabbed at the chance to pick it.  It wouldn't have won any beauty contests (ha - I can talk) but it tasted great with roast chicken and allotment-grown potatoes.

I really need to sow some spring cabbages this week before it gets too late...

I did forget...

...the brassicas!  Progress as follows:

• Calabrese - growing nicely and one plant looks like it might be ready to harvest by the weekend.  A couple of others are growing nice curds (not sure that is the right word)
• Brussels sprouts - growing ok but not particularly distinguishable as sprouts
• Cabbage - doing good with a couple looking ready to harvest though they are a bit soft when I squeeze them so they need to fill out more

This evening I picked up two compost bins (eBay bargains) for the plot.  Yay!

Summer update

I had a lovely couple of hours at the plot yesterday.  My main task was to dug over the patch in the top right corner that I'd uncovered the previous evening.  It was full of black mares tail roots and couch grass so it was quite satisfying to clear it.

The freshly dug patch can be seen in front of the potatoes in the top right corner of the piccie above.  It is worth giving an update on the crops right now...

• Potatoes: I have harvested 2-3 plants of small potatoes so far.  I planted them at the very end of April/beginning of May so they still have a few weeks of growing to do.  
• Leeks: These are growing well with their blue flags looking quite healthy.  
• Onions: I pulled one up accidentally yesterday but the rest look good.  Bigger than any of the ones I grew on the original Plot 35 on the clay soil.  A couple even look to be the size of tennis balls.  I think it down to the soil and feeding.
• Broad beans: Finished now really but one of the plants has a few pods left on.  These weren't the healthiest looking plants so some of the pods were very short and/or oddly shaped.  Tasty beans though.
• Tomatoes: 6 plants all very sturdy with green tomatoes looking good.  Variety - Shirley.
• Sweetcorn: Looking good with the frilly bits on top.  I need to fence around them very soon to defend them against The Badger.
• Courgettes: I've had a single yellow one off one the plants and am waiting to see more fruit.  The plants are like triffids and are shading the tomatoes unfortunately.  I am hoping that the removal of the lower tomato leaves will at least help the air to flow around.
• Sunflowers: 3 nice sturdy plants with main flowers open but looking toward the ground.  Smaller satellite flowers are budding up nicely.
• Jerusalem artichokes: 4 plants next to the potatoes.  Looking ok.
• Parsnips: Starting to fill out and they probably need more thinning out.  
• Celeriac: The two surviving plants look strong though I can't tell what is happening beneath the surface.  I'll take a look soon.
• Squash?: Someone kindly left 3 squash plants for me last week and I've planted them out.  I think they are squash as someone did mention that they may have some spare ones but I can't remember who it was.  Very kind.
• Horseradish: Looking good but hard to tell if it is happy or not.
• Mange tout: Growing strongly after a late-ish sowing.  A couple of gorgeous crimson flowers in places.
• Hyssop: Looking very striking in blue next to the broad beans and peas.  A clump of it came off in my hand when I touched it last week and I hope this isn't a bad sign.
• Cucumber: There is a single plant climbing up one of the end canes of the pea frame.  It has 2-3 flowers on it some fingers crossed for my first cucumber.

May have forgotten something...  The piccie below shows the top left corner of the plot.

I've applied organic chicken pellets 2-3 times on the various beds and have been watering frequently (every 2 days in the very hot period in July).

A way to go

I didn't get much time at the plot last weekend but I am hoping to get a few hours there during this one. I nipped over yesterday for a quick weeding session and bumped into one of my next door neighbours. We had a lovely chat. She had been digging up all her spuds and comparing the yield from the varieties she had grown. One outperformed the others significantly but I can't remember which one. I'll find out for next year. We were chatting and I mentioned that there was a small weed in my onion bed which I was hoping would turn out to be comfrey. She took a look and confidently said it wasn't but that if I wanted to have some comfrey, she has some potted up I could have. What a star! Out came a tall pot full of lovely comfrey. With gratitude, I transplanted it immediately.

 The weeds are prolific on my plot. Mares tail keeps coming up everywhere. A weed that looks like lamb's quarter (Chenopodium album - judging by the results of an Internet search, not an encyclopedic knowledge of common weeds on my part) is giving it a run for its money. I'm ashamed to be putting it on the compost heap when it is reportedly an important food crop in India and a close relative of quinoa. Incidentally, I am considering growing quinoa next year (it is for sale through the Real Seed Catalogue.

 This evening, I nipped over very quickly to move one of the bits of carpet so that the local wildlife could find new hiding places before I start digging over that patch tomorrow. There was a toad, a slow worm, some very fat slugs and an ants' nest. Hopefully, they will all be out of the way in the morning.

I was about to leave when one of the allotment representatives came over for a chat. A bit of banter but it turned out that he really came over to remind me that it was actually my responsibility to upkeep the path to the right of my plot. I hadn't realised so will get to it tomorrow with the strimmer. However, the chap with the plot on the other side of the path is storing some of his tools on it (and his wheelbarrow) so I'll need to have a word with him. Further on down the path, there are Jerusalem artichokes growing proudly. It would be a shame to have to remove those before their season.

 Before going over to the plot today, I had an optimistic feeling about getting it all dug over by New Year. After moving the next bit of carpet, that feeling dissipated. There is a way to go...

Must start blogging reg-u-lar

I've been finding time here and there to potter on my plot but none for updating my blog. No good for my record keeping for future years.

Things are looking pretty good in these early days. I'll put some piccies up soon if the predicted rain holds off long enough this weekend. Currently, the following crops are growing:

• broad beans (and I have had a few handfuls of those for my tummy and even my husband who doesn't tend to eat greens ate some)
• leeks
• onions
• potatoes
• mange tout
• parsnips
• celeriac
• horseradish
• dwarf beans (only just germinated - from old seeds so poor success rate but not surprising)
• cabbage
• calabrese
• brussel sprouts
• strawberries
• tomatoes
• dwarf sunflowers
• courgettes
• sweetcorn 

I sowed parsnips in early June and the germination was very good. However, just after thinking that I really should put some slug pellets down on that patch at the weekend, they got munched. Grrrr. Serves me right for procrastinating. I sowed more and they pretty much all came up so a lot of thinning was required. And organic slug pellets. Lots of them. Only 2 celeriac survived the onslaught too.

(For my records:) The heatwave we have had for the past 3-4 weeks is set to end with rain tomorrow. During that time I've generally been watering the plot every two days and all looks good. I've fed the beds with chicken pellets a couple of times.

I have a new friend - a small toad who has taken up residence in my potato patch. I think it likes the pools of water left in the trenches after I've drenched the haulms. It jumps out when I start watering that patch so I guess it doesn't want to get its head wet. Just its feet. I saw another toad near the broad beans yesterday evening. There are lots of butterflies around and friendly birds who have no qualms standing right next to me while I dig.

I've not done much digging in recent weeks because it has been too hot. Several days with midday temperatures of 28-32 degrees centigrade. Too much.

I don't think I'll get much opportunity to dig for a couple of weeks but when I do get some time, I'll remove the next bit of carpet and keep going. In the meantime, I'll write a long list of everything I want to grow next year.

I have a new enemy

I'm back! Long time no post. Since July 2010, a lot has changed. We have a toddler now and we've moved to Hampshire. I assumed the plotting would have to take a long break while the little one grow up and I had more spare time. I was going to focus on the small flower bed in our front garden and redesign our small back garden to give me some more growing space (for next year as other jobs need to be done first). Friends told me to put my name on the waiting list for an allotment so that in 5-10 years time, I could start one up again. I finally got round to it about 4 weeks ago. 2 weeks later, I got an email telling me that some plots were available. I chose one and started work last weekend. Plot35 is back!

I've not measured the plot but it is more-or-less the same size as Plot35 in Worcestershire was (not counting the bit at the bottom of the slope which was overgrown and often flooded). The new plot has two major differences from Plot35 that will make gardening on it much easier:

1. The soil is light and sandy rather than heavy and clay. It will of course need lots of organic matter added to maintain fertility.
2. It is flat rather than sloped and prone to flooding. It also catches the sun well compared to other plots on the site. 

According to the fellow plotters I've met so far (all a friendly bunch), the plot was well-tended up to a couple of years ago when it was then left to its own devices until quite recently. It is now overgrown with thick couch grass. Someone took it on and dug over a couple of small patches but then decided to take another plot instead. Those patches (plus a few more which were not dug over) have been covered so on my arrival there were 3 patches of about 3x1.75m which just need light forking over. I've done about half of that already on two previous visits. I'll need to take a bit at a time, covering over some of the grass for 2 months (which I've read is the amount of time it takes to kill it off), before removing the dead remains. It'll take 1-2 years to clear completely I think given the time limitations I have as a working mum of one.

My new enemy is Mare's tail. I've never come across it before having had to deal with bindweed and couch grass on Plot35. Mare's tail is all over the site, even on plots that have been neatly tended for 20 years or so. Apparently it just doesn't budge due to the depths to which its roots grow. It looks to me just like brown asparagus poking through the soil. It doesn't seem to cause any problems though, unlike bindweed which strangles its prey if left for too long.

I am keen to differentiate my plot a little from all the others on site which are very neat and tidy. All grow rhubarb as if it is law. My aim is to grow cut flowers as well as veg which doesn't seem like the norm there.

Ok, well, I've got a few hours to myself this afternoon for a good session of light gardening. I've got some digging and raking to do to prepare the clear patches for planting. To go in, I've got some broad beans, leeks, celeriac and potatoes (from Charlotte), lavender, hyssop, horseradish. Plus, I've got parsnip, purple sprouting and calendula seeds to sow. Yesterday, I had 15 mins there and I planted the first things in - two peonies. They were bought as dried up roots from the garden centre yesterday (buy one get one free) and I'm not convinced they've gone in the right way round. If they come up next year, it'll be a bonus.